Episode 971: Drought Talk
Date November 2, 2016 Summary Ben and Sam banter about Aroldis Chapman and answer emails about title droughts, the Cubs and consecutive pennants, scoreless streaks, World Series strategy, the recent rarity of Game Sevens, playoff ads, and more. Topics * Are title droughts good? * Chicago Cubs title backlash * World Series pitching strategy * Counting scoreless streaks * Decrease in World Series length * Joe Buck's reputation * Shortening time between innings * Playing Javy Baez at first base Intro Benh Zeitlin and Dan Romer, "The Confrontation" Outro Neil Finn, "Last One Standing" Banter Ben and Sam discuss how usage of top relievers seems to have shifted completely from barely using them to possibly over using them. Email Questions * Brett: "Will baseball be worse off if and when we don't have the Cubs' and Indians' title droughts? After them there is a whole cohort of professional sports organizations in the major sports with nothing since the mid 60s. With all the 60s expansion teams in sports and the leagues being 30+ teams now there will be many streaks that are long but not exceptional." * John: "How many, consecutive or not, World Series can the Cubs make before America begins to hate them?" * Colin: "Should the Indians start or should the Indians have started Andrew Miller in game 7?" * Scott: "According to ESPN Stats and Info, Kyle Hendricks headed into game 7 with a 15 inning scoreless streak. But one could argue that it should be 16, here's how. In game 3 of the World Series he went 4 1/3 scoreless, in game 6 of the NLCS he went 7 1/3 scoreless, in game 2 of the NLCS he gave up a leadoff home run in the second and then went 4 1/3 scoreless. So add those up and you get 16 innings, but Stats and Info appears to be throwing out the second inning of game two of the NLCS when he gave up that leadoff home run." * Jonathan: "The 2000s have been a postwar low point for fans in terms of watching game 7s. Why do you think this is the case?" * Scott: "Why does everyone hate Joe Buck so much? What are your opinions on the matter?" * Henchman21: "If the time between innings could be shortened dramatically, my thinking is the pitcher whose team is hitting could be warming up in the bullpen as the team is hitting. I don't know if that would be feasible since I don't know how hard a pitcher throws to warm up for an inning mid-game. He doesn't have to be 100% warmed up but close." * Mike: "By now everyone is aware of Javy Baez's 80-grade tagging skills. As Jon Lester was pitching that got me thinking, I wonder whether there would be any benefit derived from playing Baez at first when a runner is on first base. In theory given Baez's lightening quick tag runners would be forced to take shorter leads." Play Index * Sam doesn't have a prepared Play Index but does briefly discuss World Series game 7s. * The Giants-Royals game 7 was the 8th biggest game 7 by leverage index. * The longest game 7 was 3 hours and 2 minutes (Yankees vs. Diamondbacks in 2001). Notes * On starting relievers in the playoffs, Sam says "You should be as weird as you need to be, but not any weirder than you need to be." * Even if runs are given up with zero outs, a reliever must have a clean inning (no runs given up) in order for it to count towards a scoreless streak. * From 1955-58 every World Series went to a Game 7. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 971: Drought Talk Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes